Please Publish Me Before I Die of Cancer

This is in response to somebody who asked about publishing.

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These sheets from last year's flu
have sickened me yet again.
Thought my body'd built a resistance,
but my leukemia's given way to HIV.

Take one a day or five weekly,
or take just nine of these
every second you feel the need!
Has its rush come upon you yet?

I bribed a publisher with amphetamines,
now's he running around town, in womens' underwear
preaching the return of England's Queen.
"She has the cancer and must be crowned,"
he tearfully confesses, "for she is soon to pass on."

My bladder burst mid-ladder to these stars,
appendix popped out and became an evil twin!
Got the shakes at my lecture on 'Titling Work'!
Titillating pre-constellation gout
yet now so far, far out,
editing just to rhyme would constitute a felony ...

In geriatric circles they give you a pigeon,
that to its claw you may attach a missive.
"Dear Publisher, I may not live till Christmas;
that is, my mind may not live till then.
So please publish me sooner rather than later,
for what good will it do me, once I'm a stick of celery?"